


Roses and Ambrosia

by MissNaya



Category: DCU
Genre: Drabble, Fluff, M/M, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26127445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissNaya/pseuds/MissNaya
Summary: Jason never thought the Cave would make for a great meet-cute. Then he met Harold Allnut.
Relationships: Harold Allnut/Jason Todd
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	Roses and Ambrosia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MythologyGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythologyGirl/gifts).



> hey, guys! so, this is another different sorta fic, not like my usual fare. I wrote this for the lovely Mythologygirl, who I'd like to thank for giving me the prompt!
> 
> if you don't know who Harold Allnut is, pop over to the DC wiki and give him a look. he's a rare member of the batfam even I didn't know about before! I hope I did him justice.

It’s useful, sign language. Batman made sure he knew ASL from day 1 of Robin’s language training. Helps keep signals on the down-low, obviously, but it’s more than that. Or at least, these past few months, it’s turned into more than that for Jason.

For a guy who “works alone,” Bruce has got a veritable stable of people in his little family. Turns out, more than Jason even knew about. He learned about Harold Allnut after the guy saved his life, yanked a piece of shrapnel out of his chest right next to his heart in a procedure too delicate for even Alfred. Came to to see a man with a hunched back in scrubs next to him, smile crinkling his eyes even from behind his surgical mask.

Passed out a second later, but that’s neither here nor there.

“ _How have I never known you were here?_ ” he signed a few days later, when he could move without ripping his stitches.

“ _I like to keep to myself,_ ” Harold told him.

“ _Yeah, but down here in the Cave? Not even in the manor?_ ” Jason was flabbergasted to learn that Harold had been living literally under their feet for so long. Since Tim’s tenure as Robin, apparently, and everyone had just, like, forgotten to tell him.

He knows what it’s like to feel like an outcast.

“ _Seriously. Bruce not have enough room out of the 50 he’s got up there?_ ”

“ _I really don’t mind it,_ ” Harold signed. “ _I like it here. Bruce gives me all the technology I need to work on my inventions. Besides, I’ve never been comfortable with all the…_ ”

“ _Uber-expensive rich guy stuff?_ ” Jason finished for him with an upward quirk of the lips. “ _Trust me, I know. I came straight from Crime Alley to this place once upon a time. Still can’t get used to it._ ”

And then they’d gotten to talking about their pasts, shooting the shit for a while in total silence, save for the steady beep of Jason’s heart monitor. He learned a lot of things. Harold was a total open book. He sorta got the sense that they were both in need of someone to talk to, someone who, though they never consciously mentioned it, knew what it was like to be on the outskirts. To be the weird one.

Turns out, Harold got the short end of the “weird one” stick once. Real short. Born mute and with a severe kyphosis, he found no comfort with his family, and it wasn’t long before he left them in favor of a comparatively less painful life on the streets. Dude wasn’t the type to let it get him down. In fact, it was his dedication to helping others that eventually put him in the Batman’s sights.

And the rest, as Jason knew very well himself, was history.

He found himself at Bruce’s more often after that. Bypassing the manor entirely (save to say hello to Alfred and snag a few of his cookies), Jason would go straight down to the Cave’s garage, where Harold would usually be waiting for him.

He and Harold became something of the Cave’s unofficial mechanics, repairing the Batmobile and Batcycles and whatever other Bat-vehicles Bruce destroyed that night while saving the city. And it’s weird; those times were silent, but not really _quiet._ He and Harold had to work with their hands, leaving them inaccessible for signing, save for the occasional “ _Yessir_ ” or “ _Pass me that 7/16 wrench_ ” necessary to keep things going.

But it’s not like they worked without communicating. You know how they say a picture’s worth a thousand words? Well, apparently the shine in your eyes or the crinkle of your smile lines is worth double that.

And somewhere, between greasy fingers wiped on jeans to grab at spotless lemonade glasses, between muffled snorts beneath massive twisted tons of metal, between the drone of Jason’s own voice on those late nights when he just had to fill the silence, Harold nodding along as Jason spoke about Gotham and its people and streets and the thrum of its heartbeat under all its grime, somewhere between all that?

Jason and Harold found something.

In retrospect, he can’t figure out when, exactly, it started. Doesn’t know when those light brushes of their fingertips when they passed tools between each other started to make him shiver. Isn’t certain if it was the look in Harold’s eyes he fell for first, or the quirks of his fingers when he’d sign that day’s “ _How have you been?_ ” Doesn’t know when someone just asking him about his day turned into something so much more than that, at least in his own affection-starved, fucked up mind.

All he knows by now is that Harold Allnut is the bravest, kindest, most intelligent, most big-hearted person he knows, and he’s in love with that. He’s in love with the way Harold jerks his wrist when he tightens up a lug nut. He’s in love with the way his brow furrows when he assists Alfred with a delicate medical procedure. He’s in love with the time they spend together down there in the Cave, in the lower levels away from the tap-tap typing on the Batcomputer and the noises from Damian’s little menagerie of animals, just signing and smiling and trading ideas for ways to make newer, faster vehicles, with cooler-looking bats on them.

And, when he fidgets with the flowers in his hands and looks into those eyes he’s grown to know so well, he knows one more thing for sure:

Harold knows, too.

Which is good. Makes it easier to lift the bouquet and offer it up to him. Not that confessing something like this is ever easy, but Jason will take all the small blessings he can get.

He wishes there was a proper way to sign “uh.” Because it seems so straightforward, so blunt, to just sign, “ _I hope you like them. Happy Valentine’s Day._ ” Needs a little uncertainty to make it seem like less of a big deal, right? A little hesitation.

But maybe Harold can see that in him anyway, in the tiny tremble of his hands when he signs the words. Because that tight smile he’s wearing, that’s the one he gets on his face when he’s amused by something, but he’s too polite to say exactly what that thing is.

Whatever he’s thinking, it doesn’t matter. Because he signs, “ _They’re beautiful. Thank you._ ” And then after that, he signs, “ _Can I kiss you?_ ”

Jason lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, all the tension flooding from his shoulders. He doesn’t answer, not with words or with ASL.

When he presses their lips together, he finds that the best language to be fluent in? Is body language.

**Author's Note:**

> find more of me [here!](https://linktr.ee/herecomesnaya)


End file.
